Carrie Cole, who narrates, is a doctor – specifically an ambitious, committed surgeon – and Rosie Walsh has researched the details of training, development and practice so scrupulously that it’s all totally convincing. The surgery, although to an extent it defines Carrie, is incidental in this novel. Like all the best fiction it’s hard to categorise but I suppose it’s a very current quasi-thriller with a nod to feminism and a whiff of romance. All the characterisation is strong, the plotting tight and the action takes us to London, Thailand, Sweden and Devon. I found it so compelling that I gobbled it in 24 hours.
Carrie meets (back in 2010 – this is a time-split novel) an attractive Swede named Johann. They fall in love and after a whirlwind three months, “marry” informally on a beach in Thailand. Then, within hours, aggressive, armed police arrive and arrest him for drug smuggling. This explains the title and happens at the opening of the novel. Years later we meet Carrie, happily and conventionally married to the perfect Englishman with whom she has demanding (for various reasons) twins so her career has been on hold for six years. Now she makes the decision to return. That is pretty much the exposition. The rest of the novel winds backwards and forwards as Walsh gradually, tantalisingly, reveals the facts. The last thing you want in relation to a novel as gripping as this is spoilers so suffice it to say that most characters and situations are not quite what they seem. It’s a tale full of twists.
Characters which will stay in the mind include Carrie’s parents. Her beloved, meticulous senior civil servant father with a long career of overseas work, now has Alzheimer’s and his heart-rending admittance to a care home is underway. We meet him quite a lot as he used to be and we grieve with Carrie. It’s sensitively done. Her mother, meanwhile, who deserted the family when Carrie was ten, and her sister even younger, is an effective, single-minded political activist with contacts and, actually, a lot nicer than she first appears.
The geography and local flavour are good too. Walsh evokes the heat and colourful chaos of Bangkok recognisably. She’s also good at Devon, (where the author lives so that’s not surprising). And her evocation first of Stockholm, and then of a glorious lakeside cabin, made me long to experience Sweden – where everything works smoothly and looks calmly beautiful.
I first read about this 2026 novel on the books pages of Good Housekeeping (yes, I get about) and thought it sounded intriguing. And I certainly wasn’t disappointed. I warmly recommend this arresting page turner.
Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: Mrs Dickens by Emily Howes
